Turkey’s sectoral confidence indices send mixed signals

By Yunus Girgin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's services and retail trade sectors posted a rise in confidence in March, while the construction sector saw a drop, the country's statistical authority reported on Friday.

Seasonally adjusted confidence indices for the services and retail trade sectors were up 5.1% and 0.2% respectively, while construction sector posted decrease of 4%, month-on-month in March, said TurkStat.

The index for services rose to 105.5 in March, up from 100.4 in February. Compared to the previous month, the sub-indices for business situation and demand turnover over the past three months climbed 1.2% and 3.9%, respectively, while the demand turnover expectations for the next three months’ sub-index also rose 10.1%.

After rising to 108.9 in February, the retail trade confidence index for March was 109.2.

The construction confidence index, however, posted a decrease to 79.8, down 4% from the previous month.

"In the construction sector, total employment expectation over the next three months sub-index decreased by 6.8% to 83.2" said TurkStat.

Calculated with data gathered via a monthly survey, sectoral confidence indices are evaluated within a range of 0-200. Values above 100 signal an optimistic outlook, while those below indicate a pessimistic one.